After a few weeks of uncertainty, the third member of Huawei’s P9 family, the P9 Lite, is finally official. Well, sort of. The device was reportedly launched in Germany two days ago and features pretty much the same specifications earlier slips of its existence had us anticipating.
The Huawei P9 Lite packs a 5.2-inch full HD display, an octa-core Kirin 950 processor, 16 gigabytes of internal storage (expandable via a microSD card up to 128 GB), 3 GB RAM, a 3,000mAh sealed battery unit and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. As we had earlier noted, unlike the P9 and P9 Plus which feature the now controversial Leica dual-camera setup, the P9 Lite has a 13-megapixel camera at the rear backed by an 8-megapixel snapper on the front. The fingerprint scanner at the back of the device is spared the axe. USB Type-C is side-stepped in favour of good ol’ microUSB.
Despite all that, the Huawei P9 Lite is still not yet listed on Huawei’s main product website. This indicates that the widely reported German launch of the device was pretty much a regional affair and the company is not yet decided on regions that will get it. All focus at the moment seems to be on the P9 itself and its larger sibling, the P9 Plus. If last year is anything to go by, as was the case with the P8 Lite which never really got much official parading, the P9 Lite will start showing up in more markets unannounced long after Huawei is done introducing the man of the moment, the P9 itself.
We still expect Huawei to make official another member of the P9 family, the rumoured gigantic P9 Max.
The P9 Lite goes on sale in Germany and other European markets starting next month for EUR 299 in both single and dual SIM versions. Only the white colour option will be made available then even though black and gold will be offered somewhere along the way. Earlier rumours that the device will also be available in 2 GB and 3 GB memory options seem to either have been misplaced or spot on with some regions getting either model.
Source [translated]
